Ghosts
by drollicpixie
Summary: "She can't stay angry forever." A series of vignettes between and about Violet Harmon and Tate Langdon. Set post season 1. Not too serious and all written on my iPhone when I have a quiet moment to steal. Rated M.
1. Chapter 1

Ghosts: A Series of Vignettes (written on my iPhone)

_There's a ghost in me, who wants to say I'm sorry, doesn't mean I'm sorry..._

1.

She can't stay angry forever. The thought hits her like an ambush one afternoon as she moves chessmen across the board in a one-sided battle.

And fuck, she's been thinking an awful lot lately about forever, eternity. And boredom.

Violet was so fucking bored. And maybe a little lonely.

But then she wonders if it's the house, whispering, influencing her. It does that. She can see it now; the figurative hand in everything they do, feel. Sees her parents complacency, happiness with the new baby, forgetting everything else wrong with the world. Violet doubts the next family that tries to move in will get the same treatment as the Ramos'. But that's how things work here. It's called fucking Murder House for a reason.

And it's there in the vengefulness, the wrath, the insanity of other ghosts. Ghosts like Hayden. For her part, Violet just wants to stay neutral. Like Switzerland or some shit. And that's how she knows she can't stay mad forever.

But there will be no forgiveness. She can't find it in herself to forgive. Not now. Maybe not ever. So instead she resolves to accept it. What he did. Her mom, that gang of fucking ghouls he murdered. She can't change it.

When did her morals begin to slip, she wonders, or were they never really hers to begin with, just concepts she had been molded to believe?

As a little kid she had been wild, rebellious, fuck, a nightmare. But she got in trouble, her parents yelled, got mad, her teachers punished her and took away privileges until she learned to control herself, her impulses. But they were always there; to hurt people with her words, her fists. She had turned that rage in on herself. How was that better? And now, finally, no one could tell her what to do or who she was. She was dead. She answered to no one.

It was liberating.

Was that what Tate felt? Maybe even before he died? Did he feel free to live his own life, consequences be damned? Just stopped listening to that little voice that told him no, told him what was wrong and right, how other people expected him to behave?

Violet thought maybe Tate never had that voice in the first place.

So she stops hiding from him, stays visible, visits the basement, the attic, without a thought to whether he is there. Beauregard is fun to play with but she gets bored. Doctor and Mrs. Montgomery are just fucking loony. Travis follows Hayden, his own goddamn murderer, around like a puppy even as she moons over Violet's father, never forgiving, never forgetting, but unable to let go.

After a time Violet begins to question if they have something in common after all and decides to spend less time down there.

Tate doesn't speak to her, doesn't approach her and she is genuinely appreciates that. It makes things easier. He casts her the occasional lost, helpless glance, his eyes red rimmed, his cheeks gaunt. And he haunts her room, watching her. She can feel him, a tingle at the base of her spine where he used to rest his hand, the hairs on her arms, her neck, standing up, but she finds she doesn't really mind anymore. It's nice to have company. And, part of her rationalizes, her room was once his too. She would hate to have to give it up entirely. Having a room reminds her of what once was. Having a place to retreat to makes her feel almost human even when her thoughts are at their darkest.

Over time her resolve strengthens, which she supposes is just as well because at New Year's that's what you do. You make resolutions.

And Violet is just so fucking tired of having no one to talk to, to play games with, to have fun or cause mischief with. What's the point of being dead if you can't get into a little trouble now and again?

When the old grandfather clock in the hall chimes, telling her there are thirty minutes until midnight, until a new year, which she will not be alive to see, she casts her eyes to her parents. They are curled up on the sofa, watching the fire. The baby is snuggled into her mother's chest, her father's arm around her mother's shoulders. Then she glances back down, eyeing her lonely game of solitaire.

"Fuck this," she grumbles, voice pitched low so that no one hears her, standing and dusting off the ass of her silvery gray, silk party dress. It's loose on her, with a high waist and pleated skirt, the sleeves long, covering the fresh slashes on her forearm. She doesn't bother to bandage them anymore, lets the blood soak through fabric, smear across her flesh. No one notices.

They never did though, did they, she thinks with a sigh.

Similarly her exit goes unobserved, her family too wrapped up in themselves, their new child, their new lives. Violet decides she needs a new life too.

She finds him in her room, their room, sitting, staring out the window into the dark night. He looks at her as she enters, sees her, fucking notices her. Blonde locks fall across his forehead, into his glassy eyes, sticking to his cheeks stained with lines of pink. Violet wonders if he ever stops crying or if that's just the kind of ghost he is now, that she made him, that he made himself.

Wetting her lips she approaches, slow, like walking toward a trapped wild animal, afraid he'll bolt. Or strike.

"Hi," she says, unsmiling.

Tate stares, swallows. An indiscriminate amount of time passes but she waits, she's grown good at patience games.

"Violet, I," but she cuts him off before he can say I'm sorry or I love you. She doesn't want to hear either from his mouth tonight.

"I don't forgive you."

More silence.

"But I'm lonely," she sighs, "sad. And I'm still tired. So fucking tired, Tate." Her gaze shifts away from him as she mulls over her next words, his mouth open like a fish. "I want a friend."

"Violet," he chokes on her name, "I tried. I did but you," he breathes raggedly, "you stopped me. I could have given him to you. I never wanted you to be alone."

Her eyes find his once more. "I didn't want him."

"Then who do you want? I love you, Violet. I'll help you, whatever you want. I told you, your feelings matter more to me than..."

"Don't say that. Please. I just," she stumbles over her own words, "I can't hear it right now."

"That I love you? But Violet..."

"No. Please," her voice grows firmer, still resolved. "But I will be your friend."

And her words must stun him. He looks both like he's been slapped and kicked in the gut, and yet a smile stretches his face in an impossible way, his elation shining through everything else.

"So I can talk to you, be with you again?"

"In fairness, Tate, you never really fucking left, did you?"

His abashed grin tells her what she already knew. "But don't rush me, okay? Don't push. I want to try but I don't know if I can."

He stands, moving toward her, hands shoved deep in his pockets. "That's okay, Violet. I can be good," and he sounds like a little boy promising not to steal the other children's toys anymore.

"Okay," she agrees with finality as the clock below chimes the hour, midnight, the new year. And Violet leans forward as Tate holds so very still, eyes wide, watching her, holding his breath, as she brushes her lips across his cheek for one lingering moment. "Happy New Year, Tate."

"Happy New Year, Violet," he smiles and her grin matches his own.


	2. Chapter 2

Ghosts - Vignette 2

Violet enters her room to window rattling volume, Nirvana blasting from the iPod set up in the corner. They don't look the same, these four walls, as when her family owned the house but it's some approximation. It still feels like home.

"Tate?"

He's there, sat on the floor, head bobbing along to the music, as he bites his lip, face screwed up in concentration. Violet eyes him, striding over to reduce the noise level to minimal, before joining him, glancing down at his shaggy blond locks.

She gapes, a mixture of amusement and annoyance on her face, and squawks, "Is that my nail polish?" She's dead and there is only a limited supply of cosmetics to go around the house. But there's Tate, awkwardly swiping the brush over his right fingers.

It's the red that's so dark that's is nearly black. It reminds Violet of blood, pools of it that soak into the floor and stain everything. It reminds her of Tate. She loves it. And he is just coating it on, more color on his flesh than on the nails, wasting it.

"Violet," he whines, that petulant little boy voice, the one that makes her roll her eyes while grinning, "this is really hard."

Guys.

With a sigh she flops down on the floor, crossing one leg over the other, and leans in. "Gimme." He gratefully relinquishes control of the little glass bottle to her questing fingers. Violet examines his hands and tuts at the mess he's made. "You are fucking awful at this."

A couple of minutes later, Tate's mess cleaned up, a cigarette between Violet's lips, she takes his hand in her own and begins to paint his nails for him properly. The boy across from her never stops grinning.

"So, why the sudden urge for polish?"

He shrugs but she's already laughing, little huffing breaths, because she knows, it just took her a minute to remember.

"Didn't Kurt Cobain used to wear nail polish and shit?"

Tate shrugs again, his teeth worrying his lower lip. With the first hand done Violet holds her half gone smoke to his mouth and he inhales. She does the second hand still smirking.

The boy fucking loves his Nirvana. And now that he and Violet are friends, or whatever they are, she is expected to love them too. In her mind, they're cool but she's heard better.

With his discovering of the internet, using Violet's laptop and Wi-Fi stolen from the neighbors, it's like he can't get enough. He pours through images of his idol, downloading previously unheard bootlegs. Whenever she catches him at it, face serious as he rereads an article about Cobain in Spin magazine, she just shakes her head, dragging him off to do something else.

Grinning mischievously, her job done, Violet tilts her head, "If you think about it, I'm probably a lot more like Kurt Cobain that you are."

Tate is marveling at his nails, blowing on them, and smirking. Then when she speaks, "What?" he asks, mouth tugging downward. He's skeptical and a little offended she thinks.

He does have the hair, the clothes, genuine nineties vintage, the attitude, the pout. But Violet has something else. "Well," she shrugs, "we're both creative, sensitive souls."

"I'm sensitive," Tate grumbles. "Everyone says so."

"Maybe," she stands, waits for him to do so also, "but you didn't kill yourself, did you?" Violet moves a few feet away, toward the door, before turning back and glancing coyly at him over her shoulder.

Behind her his mouth hangs open, closes, he stutters, and it falls open again. She shrugs, smirking. "I got shot," he argues. And Violet loves the shit they can get into it over. Loves this, them. Not that she would tell him, say it out loud or anything. She's still not sure that he deserves to know. Maybe one day.

"You didn't shoot yourself."

"You didn't actually want to die!"

"Did you?" They have never really gotten into the motivation behind Tate's murderous rampage. She knows the basics and in reality she is fine with only knowing that much. But had he planned to die with his victims? Did those cops just beat him to it?

He shrugs again. She waits. "I'm still more like him than you are," he adds irritably, crossing his arms over his ragged blue henley. Then his face brightens. "You could be Courtney Love," and Violet groans. "What?"

"No thanks.

"Because of," he waves a hand between them, face sullen.

"Nah," she steps toward him. "I just don't want to be a skank," and smiles. Tate responds with a dry chuckle, his warm fingers reaching out, gripping her narrow protruding hipbone. His eyes search her face as his teeth tug on his lower lip once more and she is forced to look down, away from his probing gaze. His black chucks are absent, only mismatched socks on his feet. Traveling upward she stares at his painted nails, his hand on her hip, the other hanging limply at his side.

There's a tightening in her lower belly, an ache between her thighs. Fuck. Painted nails on guys are actually really hot. The red crusted around the beds, the stark contrast against his pale flesh. And she wants him. Like really wants him. But she's not going to fuck him. She promised herself. She is better than that. He fucked her mother for fuck's sake.

Instead her eyes meet his. "I'm bored."

He grins, "Want to play scrabble? Or," he reaches behind his back, tugging a small knife blade from the pocket of his jeans, "we could stab fucking Hayden again?"

"I want to play something new."

He never fights her, follows her anywhere, so offers, "Anything you want."

Tate's hand is still on her hip, thumb rubbing small circles into her flesh, and she wants to melt into him, but that is not an option. At least not one she's offering.

Eyes still on those nails, on blood, she thinks about the blade. "Want to take a bath," his mouth stretches even wider, gaze hopeful, "and slash our wrists?" Morbid. She doesn't fucking care.

"Vi," he looks like he wants to protest, make an alternative suggestion, but gratitude, fear of being removed from her good graces, keeps him silent.

"I want to make out as we bleed out. Like until we die."

His mouth is open again as he stares. Violet raises her eyebrows. "Yeah, yeah," he stammers, "I'll just," he nods toward the door, "get the water started," but her hand is clasped in his now. His blood red nails paired with hers, pale, brittle and gnawed to the quick.

She follows after him, grinning. She's not going to fuck him, they'll probably expire before they get to that part anyway, stopping her ability to change her mind, go back on her word to herself, but at least they can have some fun in the meantime.


End file.
